Communications carries provide database-queried communications services to their subscribers by using database management information system techniques to implement special call pressing functions. Those functions include billing and call routing services which allow a subscriber to concentrate on providing the actual information content for the database-queried communications services offered. One example of such communications services is 800-number service, also known as "freephone service", in which communications carriers translate 800-numbers numbers dialed by callers to switched-line numbers to which the calls are routed. The communication carriers also bill 800-number subscribers for all 800-number calls placed by callers. Another well-known example of database-queried communications service is 900-number service, in which communications carriers, acting as billing agents for the 900-number subscribers (hereinafter called "sponsors"), bill callers for both the 900-number calls placed by those callers and the underlying information services received with those calls.
Traditionally, 800-number subscribers and 900-number sponsors have been primarily medium-and large-scale services providers who use leased lines and specialized communications equipment (such as PBX switches and automated audio response units) at their presses to receive calls from their customers. In the case of 900-number services (also known as "pay-per-call" services), those companies offer information serices ranging from stock quotes to sports scores. Those information services are provided by either operators at the sponsors' locations answering callers questions or by the automated audio response units which deliver recorded messages to callers in response to prompts entered by the callers to select desired information services.
A recent trend-- one that is likely to continue-- in the pay-per-call market is for trained professlongs to use pay-per-call services to provide to callers one-on-one consultation services and advice on a wide range of matters, such as health, law, insurance, and help desk service for widely used software programs to name a few. Those sponsors are typically small-scale enterprises that use simple telephone sets or keysets and individual switched lines from Local Exchange Carders (LECs). Analog switched services are sometimes called Plain Old Telephone Service or POTS for short. Typically, the communications carrier translates the pay-per-call number dialed by the caller to the switched line number to which the call is directed.
Pay-per-call services in general, and switched-line-based termination for 900-number service, in particular raise some serious security concerns. Because sponsors have no way of knowing whether incoming calls were placed via 900 numbers or were placed directly to the terminating switched line numbers, sponsors are vulnerable to theft of service by callers who simply learn and dial the switched line number to which the 900 numbers are translated. For future 900-number based services, such as video services and electronic payment systems, theft of those services is likely to cause great economic harm to the sponsors.
Equally significant is the fact that some 800-number service subscribers can also benefit from knowing whether a call is an 800-number call or a POTS call. For example, an 800number subscriber who has one or more switched line numbers to which 800-number calls are directed, may wish to provide different call treatment to 800-number callers than is offered to POTS callers. Unfortunately, the 800-number subscriber cannot differentiate 800-number callers from POTS callers.
Thus, a problem of the prior art is lack of a) an indicator to differentiate database-queried communications services from other communications services, and b) lack of fraud prevention mechanisms for 900-number service.